‘Don’t stop looking for love’ – Believing in what you want and playing on your passion and talents. A job is a relationship.
‘Don’t stop looking for love’ – Believing in what you want and playing on your passion and talents. A job is a relationship. You lust for the job of your dreams, call it your ‘type’. Once you start the relationship (the job), the following tends to occur; steady start, getting to know each other, finding out how each other works and then realising whether or not you really fancy it or if you would be better off as friends. You can love it, you can hate it, you can break up, make up, consume yourself in it. But everything you go through in that relationship, whether it works out or not, is a learning curve for you to decide what you want to do, what industry you favour to work in and what company brings the best work out of you.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I firmly believe in this moto. The more you experience, the more you can take away from the experiences and use it to your advantage. Every experience you have in the working world will involve meeting different people, socializing with people you may of never thought you would before, doing tasks you never thought you’d be doing, being in new, different situations. This all is part of creating your story for your CV.
Now I have a story for you. sevens7 are a ‘LIVE’ firm. They produce and create live events and activities for clients, brands, music festivals, weddings, award shows, you name it. sevens7 are small company who do huge things with some of the best freelancers and suppliers in the industry. So for those interested in the events, marketing, PR, creative world, I hope your eyes are glued to the screen, ready to read.
Meet James, he is a brand genius and works for sevens7. I asked him 8 questions related to his career so far and here is what he had to say…
1. What do you do within this company?
I create new events and brand activation ideas for a range of brands. The event concept is owned by us and we work with a range of partners, sponsors, councils and governing bodies to bring these to life in an exciting format. The concepts are mainly sports based and aim to engage a new audience by taking the activity out of its natural environment and producing an experience that is shared amongst the audiences’ peers.
2. What does your working day involve?
A mixture of research, new business proposals, calls and meetings, partner meetings and concept development time. I need to keep track of developments within the brand activation field and sports environment to ensure our offering are unique and on trend.
3. What do you most enjoy about your job?
Variety, you never know what the next brief will be and who you might be working with. In the past this has ranged from brand activation in the Taipei and New York Marathon, organizing the first ever international ski event in Sochi to developing with Nissan and playstation: The GT Academy (a virtual to reality driving challenge).
4. What do you least enjoy about your job?
Investing a lot of time and effort in developing a great idea and it does not happen. Although always try to take this as a great learning experience for the next project.
5. What was your first ever job?
Professional Yacht Skipper – Managing a ½ million pound yacht for 2 years
Internship at IMG – 6 months of working in the biggest and best sponsorship and management company. £10 a day for 6 months! Some of my internship colleagues now work for London 2012, The FA and Premiership football clubs.
6. Have qualifications played a part in your career choice?
I have BSc degree in Innovation Management, the degree helps in ensuring you got past the first door. I always had a passion for sport – but passion is not good enough now days.
7. Is there anything you would have done differently?
Tried to get more work experience during my summer holidays, learnt a foreign language to a conversational level and run some of my own events while still studying (you get a massive experience and buzz and learnt a huge amount when in charge)
8. What advice would you give to a young person looking to get into your industry?
The internship allowed me to see right inside the industry, sample many different areas of the industry and develop a great network – some of who I still work with 12 years later.
So those are James’ relationships so far. That doesn’t mean it is the way you might find yours, but its some inspiration and a nosey at how one person found love in what he does. Patience, persistence and passion is vital to finding yours.
If you need support and guidance and think your CV isn’t telling your story in the most effective way, that’s what we are here for. Get in touch with Stepladder Worldwide, your dating agent to finding (the job you) love.
This is the second in a series of artciles by Stepladder. You can read Charlotte’s first article here: “How to Start Looking for Work Experience and Job Opportunities”
